I nodded, keeping my lips together.

A nerve in his cheek started to tick. “Bad?”

All I could do was shrug and hold my breath.

“How bad?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and didn’t bother curbing my croak of, “Bad.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed again, and his head ticked to the side. His hand came up and he scrubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. Rip’s voice was tight. “How’d they get in?”

Tension filled my entire soul as I thought about all the things those jerks had taken from me, not physically but... “They kicked in the door.”

“You call the cops?”

I nodded.

One teal eye narrowed, and I couldn’t miss the low anger in his voice as he asked, “Who went into the house for you?”

“The cops.” The more I talked about it, the worse it got. How had I thought I would get through the day?

Maybe I should ask him to give me the day off. Or at least the morning. Or the rest of the week.

“You clean up already?”

A frog seemed to take up residence in my throat because what came out of my voice next was for sure a croak. Don’t you, cry, Luna. Don’t you do it. “I didn’t. I got home late and the cops took so long to come…” I was going to cry. I was going to cry and there was no stopping it. I just needed to hold it in a little longer. Just a little longer until I was home alone, or at least in my room by myself. I was fine, I was fine, I was fine. “I should have tried cleaning since I couldn’t fall asleep in the first place, but I’m going to get started on it tonight. I was going to call some handymen about coming to fix the door—”

I saw his face cloud over before I heard the change in his voice. “You slept there?”

“It was late,” I kept on croaking. “I tried calling my best friend and Mr. C, but neither one of them answered.”

And, oh, my God, wasn’t that another reminder that I was alone. I could have tried Lydia’s cell or Mr. Cooper’s home, or Grandpa Gus’s number. Hell, I could have even called Miguel. But I hadn’t wanted to bother anyone. It was my house. My things.

Rip pierced me with that intense gaze, giving me no preparation for his next question. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Call… him?

That time I was able to shape my mouth into a smile but only because it wasn’t a happy one. “I wasn’t going to call you because my place got broken into. It has nothing to do with the business—”

“Luna,” he growled through his teeth, taking another step forward. That big body seeming to expand before my eyes. “It’s my business. You are my business.”

What?

“You slept in that goddamn place with your door not properly locked?” he asked, but didn’t wait for my response. “Christ, what were you thinking?”

What had I been thinking? “I didn’t want to bother anyone,” I managed to get out, shrugging just one shoulder at him, feeling embarrassed, but mostly… overwhelmed. “I was upset, Rip. All of my stuff—” My voice got higher and higher until I forced myself to stop because…

It had been all of my stuff. Mine. For the first time ever, everything had been mine. And someone had—

I didn’t realize I’d made this squeaky noise, and I definitely didn’t realize that at the tail end of it the tears were just going to burst out of my eyes.

It wasn’t just stuff. They had been my things. Mine.

Right there. Standing right there, with a cup of coffee in one thermos, with Rip in front of me looking like thunder, I started bawling. Bawling. My shoulders hunched in and I started shaking. My hands went up to my face, and even though I told myself to stop, told myself that it wasn’t the end of the world, reminded myself that a billion other people in the world had problems that made mine seem absolutely insignificant… I still cried. Tears dripped over my fingers and down the palms of my hands.

And I cried.

Because I had worked so hard for what I had only for someone to come in and screw everything up.

Because I was tired. Tired of getting shit on time after time.

I had my place where I had felt happy and proud and safe, and someone I didn’t know had decided to take that away from me.

Take, take, take. That’s what people did to me. Because I let them. Because they were greedy.

And it was so fucking unfair.

It was bullshit.

“Ah, fuck,” I heard muttered as I stood there, feeling so sorry for myself, so hurt, so frustrated….

What had to be two hands covered my own for a moment before moving to cup my ears, framing my face. I didn’t need to look up to know it was Rip. Who else would it be? But I kept on crying, because not even having Rip right there, being nice to me, was enough to ease how crummy I felt.

Why?

“Why would someone do that to me?” I asked him, sure my tears were probably going down his wrists as he held my face, his thumbs going over the little bones on the backs of my hands. “I don’t have anything worth stealing. I haven’t done anything to anybody lately. I don’t know why this would happen.” My voice broke. Broke, broke, broke.

Why did anyone do this kind of crap?

“It’s just stuff, but it’s my stuff, and somebody just broke in like it’s nothing. And it just feels like… some people have bad days, but it’s like I’m having twenty-six years of bad days, and I hate feeling helpless, and I’m sorry I’m taking it out on you. And crap, I hate crying. I’m sorry.”

Shaking, I curled in on myself even more, trying to retreat. Trying to protect that part of me that didn’t feel like it had gotten beat with a bat because it was all I had left that held hope. Foolish. I was so damn foolish.

Two big arms wrapped around me, cutting my thoughts off. The next thing I knew, my face was at a very warm neck and my chest was against a broader one… and I did the only thing I knew how. My hands went to hips that weren’t my own and my fingers curled into the coveralls he had on.

And I kept on crying.

Whether it was because of my things, or the idea of someone coming inside my place, or I didn’t freaking know. I had no clue. Maybe I felt like life was unfair and this was BS, but I wasn’t positive.

All I knew was that I felt like crap and I was tired of things not working out, and I was even more tired of people taking their mess out on me. Life was unfair, and it was total BS sometimes, and even though I had known that fact for a long, long time, it didn’t make it any easier. If anything, it felt even harder.

“I don’t know what I did in another life to deserve this,“ I coughed and choked into his chest, pressing my nose as close as possible to that warm, familiar-smelling column of a throat.

Heat touched the top of my head lightly, and what I knew had to be a palm spread across the space between my shoulder blades, pulling me in even closer to that coverall-covered body. Rip’s voice was low, as he said, “S’all right, Luna. Don’t cry.”

The hand on my spine moved up and down, up and down.

“I’m sorry.”

“You got nothing to be sorry about,” he said into my hair, his arms strong. “Not a single fucking thing.”

I didn’t say anything. I just stayed there, inhaling and exhaling him… mostly on accident, but on purpose too. Like medicine but for all the other little hurts. The big hurts too. And the medium-sized ones…

Days from then, maybe I’d remember how his skin smelled like Irish Spring. How he smelled like the shop somehow too but better. I’d remember how he smelled so good in this way that had nothing to do with cologne or aftershave.

But for then, for that moment, I’d take him in for what it was. Just a man I trusted, who cared about me at least a little bit and made me feel better. At least, he made me feel less alone.

“Wanna take the day off and deal with it?” he asked my hair.

I shook my head and barely got out, “Not right now.” Thinking about everything I’d need to do… “I can wrap some things up this morning and maybe this afternoon…”

Everything was ruined. I needed to call my insurance. Needed to call a handyman. Buy trash bags…